


The House Call

by TotidemVerbis



Category: Justified
Genre: F/M, Non-Graphic Description of Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:48:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22279681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TotidemVerbis/pseuds/TotidemVerbis
Summary: Raylan gets a little banged up, but that's nothing new. What is new is the nurse that still makes house calls.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	The House Call

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prettyface_lonelyheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyface_lonelyheart/gifts).



> This was written for my amazing friend [kokomobunny](https://kokomobunny.tumblr.com/) over on Tumblr. (You should go check her out!) This is my first time writing in the _Justified_ fandom, so I'm sorry in advance for any mistakes. I hope you like it, Hunny Bunny!
> 
> Takes place during some vague point in Season 3.

Raylan walked into the bar that had somehow became his place of residence, because the small apartment above the noisy apartment was not a home, and he braced his hand a little tighter against his right side. Felt his fingers spread out across sweat dampened cotton and grit his teeth against the sparks of heat lighting up along his skin between the creaking bones of his ribs. He was headed straight for the stool at the far end of the bar that he had started to think of as his, he wouldn’t be surprised if the damn thing had an imprint of his ass on it by now, but it was slow going. Weaving between the young drunk patrons was like some kind of intricate dance, and he was the kid with too long limbs and two left feet. As he sharply twisted to avoid a collision with two meatheads yelling out nonsense at each other, white-hot pain traced patterns over clammy flesh that left behind itchy hot trails. He clamped his jaw shut and pressed his lips into a thin line as he side-stepped around the oblivious drunks, and he kept his eyes set on that stool as he continued to carefully shuffle his way across the bar. Last thing he needed was someone to actually bump into him and cause him to faint. He’d pass out upstairs, hopefully after reaching his bed, and definitely after getting a drink. 

It had been a long day, a hard chase, and he had earned a drink. Thinking about that cool burn slipping down his throat was the only thing that had pulled him out of his car and stopped him from sleeping right there in the front seat, so he was going to get that drink. He stopped next to his stool, which was somehow empty despite the number of bodies packed into the room, but he couldn’t get his mind to focus long enough to suss out the _why_ of the stool being vacant. He did have enough presence of mind not to maneuver himself onto the stool. In his current state, he was more likely to fall right off the thing. So he pulled up alongside it, used the old wood as a barrier between him and the group of giggling twenty-somethings sitting at the bar, and lowered his right arm onto the bar in an effort to keep himself standing. His left arm stayed crossed over his stomach, left hand tight over his right side. 

Cool eyes swept over him, assessing, and it suddenly hit Raylan just how glad he was that he had never taken Lindsey upstairs. The bar owner and bar tender was a little too good at seeing through his bullshit, and her eyes were shrewd as she took in the messy state of him. _(Shrewd. His Aunt Helen had taught him the word, one night while she was reading a book at the dinner table.)_ Cold and judging. He made himself stand straighter and shot her a smile as she slid a glass his way, but he knew that he had blown his everything’s-okay cover when he tried to drink the glass in one quick throwback. The liquid slid down his throat only a second before the spike in pain registered, and the glass got slammed onto the bar top a little too forcefully. A couple of the young women on the other side of the stool turned to look at him for a moment, but he didn’t make eye contact and instead started in the direction of the narrow stairs that led up to his apartment.

The only thing that stopped his slow forward momentum was the feeling of a hand brushing against his arm, and he leaned away from the contact and looked over at Lindsey. He’d heard her say his name but kept walking, and that should have been the only clue she needed to know that he didn’t want to be bothered tonight. They had stopped their little bit of flirtation weeks back but still enjoyed conversations from time to time, but he wasn’t in a right state for one of their usual bantering conversations. It felt like there was a heartbeat in his lower ribcage, cold sweat was causing his shirt to stick to him in a way that made him feel like he couldn’t take a full breath, and he knew the look on his face conveyed some of what he was feeling because Lindsey’s hand dropped like she’d reached out for a hot poker. 

“Hospital?” She was too quiet in the overly loud room, but Raylan could hear just well enough. He shook his head, felt sweat slide from under the brim of his hat, and swallowed against the dryness in his throat. “I got a friend who makes house calls. I’ll send her your way.”

“I don’t need-” His voice was firm, but Lindsey easily breezed over the rest of his refusal.

“You do need. Go sit on that old couch, can’t nothing hurt it, and she’ll be here soon. Go on now,” Lindsey said and lazily waved her hand in the direction he was already going. Something about the words paired with the gesture made him think of a time when he was smaller, when he was waiting to be bigger but still tried to do as he was told. He did some mental shaking to get rid of that unwanted nostalgia and finally went where he had intended.

By the time Raylan got to the top of the stairs, his breathing was faster than he liked and his legs weren’t as steady as he preferred. He wanted to ignore Lindsey’s order, because it had most definitely been an order, and he even swayed in place in front of the ugly old couch that had come with the sparsely furnished apartment. He could see his bed through the open doorway, imagined the feeling of cool sheets and sinking down against something soft, and then lowered himself down to sit on the couch. His legs spread as his feet braced against the floor, and he sucked in a breath through his teeth as he laid his head back against the couch after placing his hat on one side of him.

He learned that if he didn’t take consecutive breaths, the pain lessened. Eased somewhat. The rush of the day faded as his body finally stopped moving, and he could feel himself slowly locking into place. Like his bones had fused while his muscles melted. The absurd idea of someone walking in to see him sitting on the faded brown couch like an ice cream cone left behind on a bench in the sunlight had him laughing, but his laugh sounded like something strangled as his body clenched up tight to minimize the pain. He was too tense to be a melting cone, and the half-hysterical laughter cut off as he breathed harshly. 

At some point, his eyes had closed as he kept himself still. The pain had faded, like a dull throbbing toothache, but he couldn’t let go enough to fall asleep. Especially not on the very uncomfortable couch. He was riding that line though when someone knocked, and he remembered why he was on the couch instead of in his bed as the sound cleared his fogging mind. Lindsey’s friend. He didn’t think Lindsey would send someone to kill him in the place that she owned, so he called out for them to come in. The door swung open, just enough to allow someone to walk inside, and he reached up to rub at his eyes to get a clearer look. 

The first thing he saw was the large duffel bag, clutched in someone’s arms and obscuring their face, and he instinctively tried to sit up. The quick movement punched a grunt out of him, and the sound caused the large dark unmarked bag to drop down. The next thing he noticed was the look of surprise on the woman’s face, the widening of her dark eyes and the slight parting of her lips, but the look was quickly replaced by the kind of professional expression that everyone in the medical field seemed to have perfected. She kept the straps of the bag clutched tightly in her hands as she stepped more fully into the apartment, and he watched as her eyes immediately went to where his hand was pressed over his side. 

“What happened?” He hadn’t been expecting such a soft voice. The kind of voice that eased his sore body against the couch cushions even though the tone told him that she wasn’t asking a question. 

“Got into a fight. Think the fella was wearing brass knuckles,” he admitted. He hadn’t told Rachel that he’d taken such a hard hit to the side, nor had he told the paramedics because he’d been too busy evading their prodding hands, but now the words slipped from his lips like he’d just been waiting for this stranger to hear them. 

“Chasing a fugitive?” The look in her dark eyes was knowing, Lindsey must have told her what he did at least, and he dipped his chin in answer. “Do you mind if I take a look, Raylan?”

“Can you tell me your name? I can’t take my shirt off until I know your name.” He kept his voice quiet, more conversational, but her eyes still darted towards the now closed door for a quick second. 

“Aria,” she told him after a moment. She placed her duffel on the floor next to the couch and then knelt down so that she could start rummaging through it, and he forced himself to sit straight up. He took one deep breath, one quick breath, and then started moving. He got his left arm out of his tee shirt without feeling any pain and had just started to feel a spreading heat by the time he pulled the tee over his head, and his mostly bare back was crushed against the scratchy fabric of the couch as his strength suddenly abandoned him. 

When his eyes opened, the woman was standing in front of him with a concerned look on her face. She didn’t know him and had no reason to worry over him, but he recognized the look as eyes moved from the tight grimace overtaking his face to where his shirt was still being held protectively over his side. His left hand had curled into a fist and the fabric was now balled up against his side, because he hadn’t been able to keep moving. He just needed to slide his shirt off of his right arm, just one tug, but he was locked in place as he looked up at the woman.

 _Aria._

“Can I?” Her hands reached towards him, and he waited for his body to curl away. Instead, he held still as her hands got closer to his injured side. Before making contact, she looked up and right into his eyes. “Lindsey called you the tough cowboy marshal living above her bar, but I think she really cares about you.”

As she spoke, her fingers slipped across his clenched fist until she was lightly gripping his shirt. He only felt a whisper of her touch before she was sliding the shirt down his arm, carefully so that she wouldn’t jostle him in any way, and he remembered what she had said. What she had implied, whether intentionally or not.

“She’s been a good friend.” It was important that she knew that, that Lindsey was a good friend, but he couldn’t say why it was important. He saw the edge of her smile as she finished pulling his shirt off and set it on the arm of the couch, and he tried to lean to the side to see her full smile as she twisted to reach into her duffel bag. 

“She must be if she called me.” Her eyes were so dark as she looked at him again, and he realized that she was sitting perched on the edge of the couch cushion. It meant she was sitting close to him, close enough for him to see the inky depths of her eyes, until she looked away again. “I’m a nurse, where doesn’t matter.”

“I ain’t gonna arrest you for being a ghetto nurse.” Her eyes snapped up away from his side, brows raised high, and he got to watch as color darkened her cheeks. “Meaning no disrespect, ma’am.”

“None taken, marshal,” she returned and then went back to looking at his side. If some nurse was helping people out on the side, that wasn’t marshal business. He certainly wasn’t going to turn her in when she was here helping him. She was doing it for Lindsey, for their mutual friend, but ruining a kind stranger’s life when he didn’t have to didn’t sit right with him. 

“You do house calls often?” He was stuck looking at the gold chain around her neck; he couldn’t see the pendant, it was hidden by her shirt, but he couldn’t make himself look away from the way the shining gold looked across her dark skin. He could hear the snap of latex gloves, but he could also see the faint pulse fluttering in her neck now. 

“More often than I like but not nearly as often as I’m sure people would assume,” she answered easily. Cold gloved hands always made him jump, but he didn’t even tense as her gloved fingers drifted across his side. “I know it’s going to hurt, but I need you to hold still.”

“Mhmm,” he hummed as she started applying more pressure. To distract himself from the way she had to check his injury, he took in the details of her face. The little bit of red showing in her cheeks. The sweep of the side of her nose when she turned to get a better look at his ribs. The pursing of her lips as she pressed at seemingly random parts of his abdomen, checking for internal bleeding. The way her black hair curled behind her ears and swayed against her skin. Her hair was the most distracting. Thick and dark, looked soft to the touch, and he had the absurd urge to lean forward and press his face against that darkness. Did he get hit in the head and not remember?

“I don’t think anything’s broken or that there’s any internal bleeding, but you really should go to a hospital,” she said when she was done. He could hear the snap of her gloves as she pulled them off and then her bare fingers were brushing against his side. Her hands were cool against his overheated skin, right where he was sure one helluva bruise was gonna be, and a quiet sigh slipped out of him at the soothing touch.

“If I needed to go to the hospital, I would,” he assured her. He’d had enough injuries over the years to tell when he really needed to go, and he knew that he would be okay. He’d be sore for a while and probably angrier than a bull until the worst of it passed, but there was no point in putting a hospital visit on his record. He almost wanted to take the words back when her soothing touch left him, but he kept the words to himself. 

“So why am I here?” She looked him right in the eye as she asked it and didn’t back down, even though he could see color rising in her cheeks and the faster fluttering of her pulse. 

“Because you heard someone was in pain and felt the urge to help?” he teased out. This time he got to see her lips part in surprise up-close, just a small O formed by dusky pink, and then she was turning her face away. The things in her bag were shuffled around as she zipped it back up, and Raylan’s head rolled against the back of the couch as he watched her stand up. 

“I hope you feel better soon, marshal,” she said as she took the few steps towards the door. 

“Raylan,” he reminded her. She stopped at the door with her hand on the knob and partially turned so that she was looking at him, and her eyes looked up from the floor to meet his. 

“Raylan,” she repeated with a slight smile. He could feel his own lips stretching in an answering smile, and he couldn’t stop himself from really looking at her before she left. Shorter than most women, and he knew that his current lack of sleep was really starting to get to him when he imagined tracing the soft lines of her body with his hands and not just his eyes.

“When are you coming back?” She looked so confused, wide-eyed, that he explained himself. “For the follow-up appointment?”

“You really think you need one?” There was a little bit of a tease in her voice, so subtle that he nearly missed it, and now he really couldn’t stop his smile as his eyes moved over her again. 

“I really need to see you again.” Preferably when he was a little more lucid and his thoughts were a little more gentlemanlike. Because right now, all he could think about was-

“I’ll see if I can schedule you in. Goodnight,” she said and opened his door. She took a single step through the doorway and started to close the door, but she stopped long enough to look at him again and add on his name before solidly shutting the door.

He wasn’t sure how long it took him to get off of the couch and force his body to move the few feet into his bedroom, and he carefully lowered himself down onto the bed. As the cool sheets brushed over his skin, he thought of the nurse’s hands moving over him. Cool and soothing. His face pressed down into his pillow as he pictured thick black hair, and he saw dark brown skin shining golden under his hands as he let himself drift off to sleep. He needed to see his nurse again. Wanted to listen to her talk more in her soft voice.

Whispered into the darkness of his bedroom before succumbing to full sleep was a single word, _“Aria.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
